USA is ready to rock with the UK on 01 Feb – the EU isn’t

With “ze clock teeking”, the EU seems determined to waste more time

Brexit Facts4EU.Org sheds some Brexit light on the murky world of EU delays

Yesterday the US Ambassador to the Court of St James, Ambassador Woody Johnson, made it perfectly and very publicly clear that the United States is ready to start formal trade talks the moment the UK leaves the EU.

Unfortunately, unlike the US, the EU will not be ready.

Ambassador Johnson stated yesterday that the USA is ready to start agreeing new trade arrangements with the UK in two weeks’ time - on 01 February – the day after the United Kingdom exits the EU (albeit in name only).

How is it possible that the EU is not ready to start trade talks after all this time?

Brexit Facts4EU.Org Summary

EU-UK trade talks – the current position and the extra EU delays

On 01 February, (first day after Brexit), the EU will NOT be ready to negotiate

When drafted, the Commission’s proposed mandate needs to be discussed by the EU27 governments

The EU will not be ready to negotiate trade with the UK until March

March will be three years and nine months after the UK voted to leave the EU

This is just three months before the notice period to extend the end of the Transition Period expires

It is just nine months before the UK will leave the EU and trade independently

On the other hand, the USA is ready to start

Credit: Twitter, US Ambasssador

EU Commission picks Juncker’s Spanish Europhile Head of Cabinet for key role in UK negotiations

Jean-Claude Juncker’s former chief of staff Clara Martínez Alberola has just become the EU’s deputy chief Brexit negotiator, working with Michel Barnier. She only started work one week ago, on Monday 06 January.

In the 1980s Ms Martinez Alberola attended the College of Europe in Brussels, as well as the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Aged 56, she has only ever worked as a technocrat for the EU.

Is the EU really a credible international organisation?

The EU Commission still has not even drafted its proposed mandate for negotiating a trade agreement with the United Kingdom. According to Monsieur Barnier, speaking in Sweden last week, he hopes they will have completed this by 01 February.

This is the same day that the USA is ready to start agreeing trade terms with the post-Brexit UK. While the United States is pressing ahead, the EU will still be talking amongst themselves.

Once the Commission has produced its “negotiating mandate”, it then has to propose this to the EU27 governments for approval. It is expected that there will be some disagreements. Some governments will insist on prioritising certain issues, such as full access to British waters, whereas others will care far more about the bulk of the trading arrangements between the EU and the UK.

We expect this to be discussed at the General Affairs Council on 25 February although no agenda has yet been produced. Monsier Barnier himself hopes that the final mandate will be agreed by the end of Feb/early March. Only then can the first negotiating meetings with the UK’s team be planned.

"This is no time for timidity. Parallel negotiations will stop us becoming a rule-taking satellite of Brussels," says former Brexit Minister Steve Baker MP, the Chairman of the ERG - the main grouping of Eurosceptic Conservative MPs in Parliament.

In a powerful article in the Daily Telegraph yesterday (FREE link), Steve Baker MP laid out the compelling case for conducting trade negotiations with worldwide partners, without waiting for the EU.

It was this article that the US Ambassador responded to so quickly.

Observations

Many readers will be astonished that the EU is still not be ready to negotiate the future trading arrangements between the EU and the UK, nearly four years after the UK’s EU Referendum took place.

Instead, the EU followed a policy of delay and obfuscation, introducing contrived ‘priority areas’ which had to be agreed before they would discuss anything else at all. Unsurprisingly one of these was money, and Theresa May meekly gave into to this demand. Rather more surprisingly the new Johnson Government has not challenged this.

On a more positive note, many countries are queueing up to talk trade with the UK and it is clear that the USA is enthusiastic to start. Others such as Australia and New Zealand have long indicated their keenness.

The irony of all this, of course, is that there is not – and never was – any legal restriction on the UK negotiating trade deals with other countries, provided the actual deals did not start until after the UK had left the EU.

We were the first to say this in 2016, and our position was backed up a month later when Lawyers for Britain published their opinion. We are well aware that some of the mainstream media such as the BBC do not seem to know this, and continue to report incorrectly, but that is the case.

Nevertheless, we are where we are. And countries like the US are champing at the bit, whereas the EU donkey is plodding along at its own pace. This in itself shows how the British people chose the right course back in 2016.

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Reader Comments 18

1. Sydney Ashurst , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 09:19:

Are the EU 27 member States really involved? They are Marionettes called to Brussels at the behest of the Commissions unelected President. They have a meal, agree the Commissions decisions, line up, have their photograph taken and its all over.
In charge of the current charade is Andrej Plenković, Croatia’s prime minister, whose country is taking over the presidency of the EU. He is having his strings pulled and toeing the EU line according to the Guardian.
The EU will be unashamedly “political” and block the City of London’s access to European markets if Boris Johnson tries to exempt the UK from its laws.
Asked whether the EU would use its power to switch off the City’s ability to serve European clients to gain leverage in the coming negotiations with Britain, Plenković said: “I wouldn’t go into the vocabulary of weapons but what I have learned in international and European negotiations [is] that all arguments and considerations are treated as political.”

2. Catherine, Dollar , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 09:41:

The EU is foot-dragging big time. Great piece today.
The EU doesn't like losing face. They deserve to lose face over this.

3. Sydney Ashurst , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 09:59:

Bigger problems on solidarity loom for the EU.
Going green can be a costly business, as the EU's executive body will make clear on Tuesday (today) when it launches a one-trillion-euro plan to finance its goal of making the bloc carbon neutral by 2050.
That figure represents a 10-year investment to be sourced from public funds and leveraged private sector money. It is part of Europe's "Green Deal" -- an ambitious rethinking of the economy, transport and energy sectors to turn the EU into a leading inspiration in the fight against global warming.
But behind the sweeping rhetoric of the endeavour, to be studied Tuesday at a sitting of the European Parliament in the French city of Strasbourg, are a number of knotty problems that have to be worked out.
A main one is how to set coal-dependent EU regions -- think Poland, the Czech Republic, or parts of Germany -- on the path of renewable energy.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed a transition fund meant to bankroll the sort of deep changes needed, which would make available up to 100 billion euros (110 billion dollars) a year.
The Commission wants a quarter of its long-term budget spending to go on the Green Deal transformation, and is banking on EU member states and the European Parliament backing its plan.
IS THE UK GETTING OUT IN TIME? We have already paid to forsake coal in electricity generation.

4. Sydney Ashurst , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 10:39:

Why did Remainers think what goes on in EU member States irrelevant to our membership.
14.02.20 More transporation chaos and delays expected as France's strike enters day 41

5. Barbara Jell , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 11:03:

Excellent article by Steve Baker, but is Boris LISTENING and will he act accordingly? We all know his deal is a sham and that if he signs it as a Treaty, we are doomed. I worry that during the transition period we will be sucked into more pernicious commitments to the EU. Why have our febrile politicians never had the courage to say NO?
Off topic - the excuse for not hearing the symbolic chimes of BIG BEN on the 31st January on the basis costs are 'spiralling' out of control to £1/2 a million, is utterly unacceptable. OK to send £50 million A DAY to the EU, to have an obscenely bloated Foreign Aid Budget, to continue with the EU inspired HS2 project now projected to be £185 BILLION, but not to spend peanuts on marking another historic victory from tyranny, is outrageous.
Write to your MP.

6. GeorgeP , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 11:27:

The governments actions on 1st February will be revealing as to their intentions. If they crack on with negotiations with the USA and others such as Japan, Australia and New Zealand, as Steve Baker advocates in his excellent article in yesterdays Telegraph, then it will be an indication that Boris truly intends to go down the path of independence and the restoration of full sovereignty. If they sit on their hands and wait for the EU to get their act together, then we are destined to become a rule taking satellite state of the People's Republic of Europe and everything will have been for nothing....

7. kzb , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 12:11:

You might complain about the slowness of the EU but you have to admit we got trashed in the last round. We effectively allowed the EU to make up new treaties as they went along ! Where did the scheduling and the cash payment come from? Which law or treaty ?
We should definitely play off the US against the EU. Seeing that we could be importing food products from the US instead of Europe will put pressure on the EU side.
However past performance of our negotiators does not fill me with confidence.
More likely our side are Remainers who intend to teach us a lesson.

8. Sydney Ashurst , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 12:24:

Can anyone explain to me why it will cost £500,000 to bong Big Ben and why it has to be crowd funded.
Knock it off the EU bill, which keeps growing the longer they can keep us in.

9. Michael Wood , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 14:22:

Sydney Ashurst.
Have you seen this article in the telegraph by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard re climate change (it is behind a paywall, though)https://www.telegraph.co.uk...
I cannot believe that this has been written by a sane individual.

10. Dennis , Tuesday, January 14, 2020, 14:41:

More on the EU Green trillionhttps://www.politico.eu/new...
"Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday in Luxembourg committed to raising, by 2030, €1 trillion for the fight against climate change. How exactly she plans to do that, and who will profit most from the money, she left for today’s College meeting to answer.
“Climate change is an enormous challenge, so we have to think and act big,” Commission Executive Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis told Playbook, admitting that today will present the first credibility test for the new Commission. “We put the Green Deal on the table last month and, to put it bluntly, we now need to put our money where our mouth is,” he said.
Dombrovskis said that what will be unveiled today is a “comprehensive funding plan to transition to a greener Europe.” He added: “We need at least an additional €260 billion a year to meet the 2030 climate goals. The Sustainable Europe Investment Plan will give us real financing clout — €1 trillion over a decade — to fund sustainable projects across the EU.”
Some might yet need more convincing, and what’s more convincing than a pile of cash?"
PHONEGATE LATEST:
Ursula von der Leyen wiped the data from a second mobile phone before returning it to the German defense ministry, Spiegel reports.
The European Commission president is being investigated by a German parliamentary committee about how lucrative contracts from the defense ministry, which von der Leyen led until last August, were awarded to outside consultants.https://www.politico.eu/art...